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N3Logic: A logical framework for the World Wide Web

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2008

TIM BERNERS-LEE ,
DAN CONNOLLY ,
LALANA KAGAL ,
YOSI SCHARF  and
JIM HENDLER
TIM BERNERS-LEE
Affiliation:
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA (e-mail: timbl@csail.mit.edu, connolly@csail.mit.edu, lkagal@csail.mit.edu, syosi@csail.mit.edu)
DAN CONNOLLY
Affiliation:
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA (e-mail: timbl@csail.mit.edu, connolly@csail.mit.edu, lkagal@csail.mit.edu, syosi@csail.mit.edu)
LALANA KAGAL
Affiliation:
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA (e-mail: timbl@csail.mit.edu, connolly@csail.mit.edu, lkagal@csail.mit.edu, syosi@csail.mit.edu)
YOSI SCHARF
Affiliation:
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA (e-mail: timbl@csail.mit.edu, connolly@csail.mit.edu, lkagal@csail.mit.edu, syosi@csail.mit.edu)
JIM HENDLER
Affiliation:
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA (e-mail: hendler@cs.rpi.edu)
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Abstract

The Semantic Web drives toward the use of the Web for interacting with logically interconnected data. Through knowledge models such as Resource Description Framework (RDF), the Semantic Web provides a unifying representation of richly structured data. Adding logic to the Web implies the use of rules to make inferences, choose courses of action, and answer questions. This logic must be powerful enough to describe complex properties of objects but not so powerful that agents can be tricked by being asked to consider a paradox. The Web has several characteristics that can lead to problems when existing logics are used, in particular, the inconsistencies that inevitably arise due to the openness of the Web, where anyone can assert anything. N3Logic is a logic that allows rules to be expressed in a Web environment. It extends RDF with syntax for nested graphs and quantified variables and with predicates for implication and accessing resources on the Web, and functions including cryptographic, string, math. The main goal of N3Logic is to be a minimal extension to the RDF data model such that the same language can be used for logic and data. In this paper, we describe N3Logic and illustrate through examples why it is an appropriate logic for the Web.

Keywords

LogicWebSemantic WebScoped negationQuotingRDFN3
Type
Regular Papers
Information
Theory and Practice of Logic Programming , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , May 2008 , pp. 249 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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